How do you disable SearchApp.exe from running so that you can enable SLI in the Nvidia Control Panel?

Anonymous
2020-08-21T21:11:28+00:00

I'm unable to shut down SearchApp.exe in task manager so that I can enable SLI in the Nvidia control panel.  I've performed a clean boot and stopped the Windows Search service. 

However as soon as I end task on  SearchApp.exe, it automatically restarts.  Because of this I'm unable to enable SLI in the Nvidia control panel.

SearchApp.exe is located in C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy

I'm unable to enable SLI if I boot into safe mode.  I already tried that.

When I had a version of Windows 10 pre version 2004, I had no problems ending task on everything running that prevented SLI from begin enabled.  I did a clean install of Windows 10 last night to fix a problem and now that the problem is fixed, I have a new one.  I really hope I don't have to install an older version of Windows 10 and upgrade to get around this problem.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Cortana and search

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Anonymous
2020-09-06T13:11:25+00:00

The previous answer is unlikely to work because Cortana keeps searchapp.exe running all the time (causing cpus to get hot).

The following commands worked for me. You have to paste them into in Administrator-level Command Prompt again and again until the timing is right and the "move" works.

cd %windir%\SystemApps

taskkill /f /im SearchApp.exe

move Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy.old

Optional: to remove Cortana completely (in addition to stopping searchapp.exe), run the following command in Administrator-level Powershell:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.549981C3F5F10 | Remove-AppxPackage

David Spector

Springtime Software

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-06-07T17:31:40+00:00

    Sir you **** up my pc seriously after putting commands for closing searchapp , my pc is getting restart after every few minutes when i open some more tabs or some game and blue screen pop up with eerror : DPC watchdog violation and then pc restart its happenning non stop , help me

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-06-07T21:21:26+00:00

    Hi Huse & Umer

    Your situation has been discussed.

    Please go to March 4th 2021 post discussion on this thread itself.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-07-27T01:39:12+00:00

    Hey David,

    Your instructions worked for me in less than a minute so I wanted to say thanks and to tell everyone that once they have copied your commands and opened admin cdm prompt all they have to do is hit edit>paste over and over real quick for it to work. It closed search right away, but then I had to hit "paste" about 8-9 more times before it moved it successfully, which in real time took only a few seconds to get done. Thanks again for the poisting...

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-09-10T19:21:41+00:00

    @David_167 - I tried :

    cd %windir%\SystemApps

    taskkill /f /im SearchApp.exe
    move Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy.old

    ...and although SearchApp is gone and doesn't connect to the internet all on it's own, my ability to search from the Start button is gone. Is there a way to 'undo' the move command above?

    Ideally I'd just like to stop search app dialing out, and keep the ability to search apps from the start menu, but it seems these are linked (unless it was the Cortana fix that did that...)

    Hoping you can help.....

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